


Sounding the Depths

by spookyawards_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Florida (X-Files), Gen, Short, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-21
Updated: 2003-09-21
Packaged: 2019-04-27 06:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14419566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyawards_archivist/pseuds/spookyawards_archivist
Summary: In which Mulder gets Lesson One in Regaining Your Partner's Trust.  A series of missing scenes from "Agua Mala."  See notes at end for more info.





	Sounding the Depths

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).

 

Sounding the Depths

## Sounding the Depths

### by ML

Date: May 29, 2003  
Title: Sounding the Depths  
Author: ML  
Feedback: welcomed and adored!  
Distribution: Kimpa and Enigmatic Dr., always; Ephemeral, Gossamer, or if you've archived me before, yes; if you haven't, please just let me know and leave headers, email addy, etc. attached. Thanks!  
Spoilers: Agua Mala, Two Fathers/One Son Rating: PG  
Classification: Vignette  
Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST  
Summary: In which Mulder gets Lesson One in Regaining Your Partner's Trust. A series of missing scenes from "Agua Mala." See notes at end for more info. 

Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine. They mostly belong to the actors who portrayed them, but Chris Carter created them, and Ten Thirteen and FOX own the rights. I mean no infringement, and I'm not making any profit from them. But I am forever grateful for their existence! 

Thanks to Carol for poking and general all-around helpfulness! 

* * *

Sounding the Depths  
by ML

He'd been running when Arthur Dales called. He'd been running a lot in the past week. Whether it was from something or toward something, he refused to speculate. He just wanted to run until he was exhausted, and could stop thinking. Classic avoidance behavior, he knew. The time would come when he'd have to face up to things. In the meantime, he ran. 

It appeared that he wasn't the only one avoiding the inevitable. He hadn't heard from Scully since they'd left Kersh's office a few days before. They'd been told to take a week. The basement office was a crime scene, and it would take that long to clear things out. For once, Mulder wanted nothing to do with it. 

Diana also seemed to be laying low since El Rico, even though Spender Jr. had been her partner. He hadn't heard what had become of her, and wasn't sure that he cared. Scully's accusations still rang in his ears, and though he'd dismissed them at the time they'd awakened some doubts. 

He wasn't satisfied with Diana's explanations either. He'd been thrown by her attempt to kiss him into acquiescence or at least passivity. His reaction had been reflexive rather than responsive, and he was sure she knew it. She hadn't tried it again. 

He hadn't wanted to believe what Scully told him. His beliefs had taken so many hits in the past couple of years that he wasn't sure he could take one more betrayal, and Diana's kiss was the Judas kiss. 

None of this had been shared with Scully. After their meeting at the Gunmen's she had retreated into professionalism. She'd done what he'd asked, saying no more about her suspicions. What this cost her only she could say. He didn't have it in him to inquire, not now anyway. Maybe never. 

If he'd been home to answer the call, he might have told Arthur Dales no. But as he listened to the message another time, he thought it might be a good idea to go after all. 

He and Scully weren't due back at work until the following Monday, when they would officially take over the X Files division once again. He should feel more elated, but there were too many unresolved differences between him and Scully for him to feel undiluted joy. 

As he listened to Dales' enticing message a third time, he hatched a plan. This was as good a way as any to get their feet wet. 

He called Dales, then he called Scully. 

x-x-x-x 

Dana Scully surveyed her home, newly scrubbed and set to rights. She'd put her week of enforced vacation to good use, putting order back into her world. 

If only it were so easy to scrub her mind, too. She still saw the images from El Rico in her mind's eye, and thanked God again that Mulder wasn't among them. Even Kersh had been speechless at the sight of the carnage. 

It was too much to hope that Diana Fowley had been among them, too. No, Agent Fowley had submitted her report, stating that she'd arrived too late to do anything other than call in reinforcements. Nothing as to why she was there in the first place, or where she got the information. 

Scully wished she could be at Agent Fowley's OPR hearing. She'd love to hear how Fowley'd explain what happened, and why her partner hadn't been with her. Agent Spender had disappeared from the X Files office, leaving behind no clues except for the bloodstains on the desk and the floor. No one seemed to know if he was dead or alive, or how he left or was removed from the Hoover Building without anyone noticing, either. 

It worried her that something similar could happen to Mulder, if he continued to trust Diana Fowley. At least Agent Fowley hadn't been reassigned to the X Files. Not as far as she knew, anyway. Perhaps that news was waiting until Monday morning. 

She wondered if she and Mulder would still be able to work together. The trust he used to place in her judgment wasn't there. He'd scoffed at her warnings, had gone ahead in his usual way, and could have gotten himself incinerated as a result. 

<But he didn't,> she reminded herself. <He called you instead.> That was something to cling to. But she didn't want to convince herself, she wanted Mulder to convince her. She wanted to know that their partnership still mattered to him. 

The phone rang. Mulder's voice didn't say exactly what she'd hoped for, but it was an olive branch of sorts. It was a start. 

x-x-x-x 

Mulder was determined to make the best of this. He was grateful for Scully's presence, even if he didn't know what to say to her. She'd made it pretty clear that she was still unhappy with him, though it seemed to him for very little reason. 

They hadn't yet discussed El Rico, and he hadn't shared his suspicions about Diana with her. She'd probably read much more into it, and take it as a validation of her own suspicions. 

As their flight was delayed a second time, he glanced over at her. She sat reading a medical journal, but looked up when she sensed his eyes on her. "What?" she asked. 

"Nothing," he said. "I thought we might talk about the case." 

"You seemed a little sketchy on the details, Mulder. I thought you wanted to wait for me to hear it in person." 

Scully had turned toward him, but he noticed she kept her finger holding her place in the magazine. 

What she said wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but it annoyed him all the same. He'd hoped for some semblance of normalcy, but this was a travesty. She'd agreed to come on the trip with him, but she wasn't following their usual script. 

"Why are you going to Florida with me?" he asked suddenly. 

"Because I'm your partner. It's my job." She spoke in clipped tones, no warmth whatever. 

"Is that the only reason?" Mulder persisted. The phrase, "all I have left is personal interest" rang in his ears and though she might shoot him where he stood, he had to know. 

"Is that the only reason you asked me?" Scully asked, giving no quarter. 

Determined hazel eyes attempted to stare down stubborn blue ones. 

Luckily for one or possibly both of them, at that moment their flight was called. Mulder could look away without having given the impression of giving in, and Scully could blink without seeming to have looked away first. 

x-x-x-x 

The flight was only half full, which wasn't surprising considering the weather they were heading into. The pilot warned them that the storm had been upgraded to hurricane status and that they could be diverted if the airport closed. 

Great, thought Scully. Why did I agree to come along on this trip? 

When Mulder had called her, it had been on the tip of her tongue to refuse. After all, it wasn't an official case. But the fact that he'd asked her along had taken her by surprise. She'd been dreading seeing him in the office on Monday with so much unresolved between them. This seemed like a good way to ease back into their partnership. Mulder over the phone had almost seemed his old self, enthusiastic and persuasive. She'd let herself be persuaded. 

The long wait at the airport had made her think twice about the whole idea. Mulder in person had seemed edgy and tentative, his eyes sliding away whenever she tried to look at him and talk to him. Of course, she was never at her best at airports either, and the wait began to wear her down. 

Now that they were airborne, and it was too late to turn back, she tried to make the best of it. Mulder was making an effort. She should, too. 

She glanced over to see what he was reading. It was a good-sized book, with double columns of type and woodcut illustrations. From what she could see, she surmised that this book was not entirely factual. She glanced at the top of the page, confirming her suspicions. 

"'Monsters of the Sea'?" she whispered to him, eyebrows raised. 

"Know your enemy, Scully," Mulder said. "I don't know for sure what we'll be up against, but forewarned is forearmed." 

"Or eight armed, as the case may be," Scully replied, pointing to the picture in the book. "The Kraken?" 

"Big enough to crush a ship in its tentacles," Mulder said solemnly. 

"It's a giant squid," Scully said. 

"I can see that," Mulder said patiently. "And there's plenty of evidence that they do, in fact, exist." 

"Though probably not off the coast of Florida," Scully said. 

"You never know," Mulder said. He grinned a small grin. 

Scully turned back to her magazine, but she permitted herself a small smile too. 

x-x-x-x 

The descent into the airport made Scully think once again of the events of recent weeks. She felt as if she'd been jerked around from crisis to crisis. She'd veered between stomach-dropping despair and climbed up to anger and then whipsawed into fear and the anticipation of more terrible things to come. She closed her eyes and gripped the handrests tightly, forcing herself to breathe slowly and deeply. It didn't help much, but it gave her something to concentrate on other than the rainstreaked view of chaos outside the plane's window. 

Then she felt Mulder's hand slide over hers. He gave it a little squeeze, and the warmth and pressure gave her something better to focus on. 

Neither of them said anything, but Mulder kept his hand over hers until the plane was safely on the runway. 

x-x-x-x 

Mulder observed that it wasn't exactly love at first sight between Arthur Dales and Scully. She'd been quiet on the drive to Dales' home, looking out the window at the gathering dusk. Mulder shared her increasing dismay about the weather. This wasn't exactly what he'd call easing back into the X Files, and he was pretty sure Scully didn't either. 

He wasn't going to apologize for it; she didn't have to come. She'd come over when he'd asked and listened to the message on his answering machine, given him a long, assessing look, and said yes. He hadn't even tried very hard to persuade her. 

And yes, he was aware that Arthur Dales was probably, if not three sheets to the wind, at least one and half when they got there. He recognized the whiskey fumes as soon as he'd opened the door. He shrugged as they went back out to the car. They were here, and he would do his best. 

Scully would, too, he thought, despite what Arthur Dales seemed to think. She always did, whatever she might believe. 

x-x-x-x 

<He had the nerve to lecture me>, Scully thought as they drove along. <As if I haven't gotten enough of that from Mulder over the years: "you saw it, why can't you admit it?">

Dales, being the old-fashioned old boy that he was, had done his best to address Mulder directly and dismiss her. Just because she was used to it didn't mean she had to like it. Or to take it from the former agent in charge of the X Files, despite Mulder's deference to him. 

Diana Fowley had tried the same thing. Shut her out of the X Files, making prior claim to everything. Not just the job, but Mulder, too. And Mulder seemed willing to let her. 

At least he'd defended her in front of Dales. 

x-x-x-x 

"You know Scully, someday we'll look back at this and laugh." God, he hoped so. There wasn't much to laugh at right now. Between yowling cats and suspicious deputies and now the condescending cops at the roadblock, he'd had about enough of Florida and hurricanes and the mysteries of the deep. Not that he'd admit it to Scully. 

Typical Mulder, she thought. Trying to infect her with his own enthusiasm, using his magician's trick of finding meaning and purpose out of thin air. She preferred him this way to depressed and defeated but she couldn't say that to him, of course. Instead, she argued with him: "I don't need my mettle tested," she said. Neither of them did, but it was good to be working on a case together, even one as implausible as this one. 

x-x-x-x 

Mulder watched as George pulled Scully back into the apartment, and with her, his hope of survival. 

The thought of whatever it was coursing through his blood was almost enough to drop him to his knees. He felt something reaching through him, trailing unpleasant heat like a lava flow. It stung inside him like salt rubbed into a wound. His throat constricted as much from panic as from the creature, whatever it was. 

He wondered in a haze of pain if Scully would have to perform a tracheotomy on him. Or, if she'd even make it in time to do one. Maybe he could keep himself alive until she got away. He knew she would. George the Survivalist was no match for her. 

Still, he hoped she'd take care of George quickly. He looked up and saw more of the translucent tentacles looking for a way out of the light fixture and into him. He shuddered and choked and crawled as far away as he could. <dammit Scully, _hurry_ >

Things were happening too fast, and not fast enough. George was waving his gun around and yelling, Angela was screaming at Walter, but all Scully could think about was the look in Mulder's eyes as he reached for her. She had to get to him and save him, though she had no idea how. 

She couldn't stop thinking about his eyes. They showed his fear but something else as well. His eyes said things to her that seldom passed his lips. 

She'd seen that look so many times in the past, but now she understood. The connection between them hadn't broken. It had frayed to a fine thread, perhaps, but it still held. She'd never let him down before, and she wasn't going to start now. 

x-x-x-x 

Dales's attitude toward her had taken a 180 degree turn, and Scully wasn't sure of the cause. It could have been the story of the baby delivery -- that was the kind of human-interest story that always made even the most hard-bitten professional get misty-eyed. Even the EMTs took a moment to coo over Leroy Walter Villareal Suarez, Junior, much to Mulder's annoyance. 

Maybe her mettle had been tested and proven to Dales' satisfaction. Not that she cared overmuch for his opinion, but it was nice to be acknowledged for her skills by _someone._ So what if he still talked about her like she wasn't there? 

She glanced at Mulder. She couldn't see his face while Dales sang her praises, but he'd insisted that he'd figured out the "cure" for the parasites himself. He certainly could have figured it out on his own, and his explanation seemed plausible enough. Scully let it go. 

Truth to tell, they'd probably both arrived at the same conclusion about the nature of the "sea monster" simultaneously, but Mulder had been too weak to pull himself outside. Scully had carried a bucket of fresh water out with her and doused Mulder with it, then helped him drag himself out the door to lie in the rain. 

She didn't want to think of the stuff oozing out of his wounds to dissolve in the puddles on the sidewalk. Mulder had started to revive almost immediately after that and by the time the EMTs finally arrived everyone was doing fine. 

She couldn't help but smile. She was proud of herself. She'd delivered a baby and rescued her partner to boot. And now the sun was shining and they could go home. It almost didn't matter what Mulder said, or didn't say. 

x-x-x-x 

"Agent Mulder." Dales gestured at him as Scully went outside. Mulder turned and looked questioningly at him. 

"I'm serious about what I said regarding Agent Scully. You don't seem to realize how lucky you are to have a partner like her. I followed some of your activities over the police band. She kept her head admirably, and though it was plain that she didn't agree with our initial assessment of the situation, she took on the assignment willingly enough." 

Mulder was struck by Dales' astute summing up of the situation. Still, he felt he had to defend himself. As he opened his mouth to speak, Dales held his hand up. 

"Brains, beauty, and a willingness to put up with your flights of fancy -- beyond rubies, young man. Beyond any truth you might discover." 

Mulder's mouth snapped shut and he nodded, neither agreeing with nor denying Dales' words. He took his leave and went out to join Scully. 

She stood next to the rental, tilting her head up to the sun and the warm breeze. 

He simply stood and observed her for a moment, thinking about Arthur Dales' words to him. Yes, he knew how lucky he was. He should find a way to tell her so. 

"Ready to go, Scully?" She nodded, eyes still closed, smiling into the sun. 

"Want to drive?" he asked, dangling the keys in front of her. 

"Are you okay, Mulder?" Scully asked immediately, her face showing her concern. 

"Yeah, I just thought you might like to drive," he said. 

She nodded, and it seemed to him that she understood so much more than his words. She took the keys from him and got in the car. 

They drove in silence for a little while until Mulder said, "Thanks for coming with me. I know it wasn't an official case, but I appreciate it." 

Scully glanced over at him. "It's what I do," she said with a smile. "I'm your partner." 

end. 

Author's notes: I've always had a problem with the nonresolution of the conflict between Mulder and Scully over the events in Two Fathers/One Son. Therefore, I've decided I needed to work it out through a series of stories showing how M &S worked things out. So stick around if you're interested, I plan to do a few more! 

Liked this one? Want more? I'd love to hear from you! 

Thanks for reading!   
  


#### If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to ML


End file.
